Automated moderation can be a blunt instrument – as users trying to post an image of Aboriginal men in chains discovered“It’s much easier to build an AI system that can detect a nipple than it is to determine what is linguistically hate speech.”The Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made that comment in 2018 when he was discussing how the company tackles content that is deemed inappropriate or, in Facebook terms, judged to be violating community standards. Continue reading...
Developer says releases including Horizon: Forbidden West and Marvel’s Spider-Man will be key to demonstrating the system’s capabilitiesHappily for anyone who struggles to summon much interest in raw tech specs, last week’s PlayStation 5 broadcast was heavy on games. Having seeded details about the console’s hardware and performance throughout the year, Sony opted to show what developers have been doing with that speed and power.Of the 28 games shown, nine were from Sony’s own studios, meaning they will be playable only on PS5. A further 14 were what’s known as timed exclusives, meaning that they’ll be available on PS5 first and may also launch on PC. Continue reading...
Six former senior employees set out to terrorize a couple for publishing an online newsletter unfavorable to the companySix former senior eBay employees have been charged with waging an extensive campaign to terrorize and intimidate the editor and publisher of an online newsletter with threats and disturbing deliveries to their home, including live spiders and cockroaches, federal authorities said on Monday.Executives were upset about the newsletter’s coverage, so their employees set out to ruin the lives of the couple who ran the website, sending a funeral wreath, bloody pig face Halloween mask and other alarming items to their home, authorities said. The employees also sent pornographic magazines with the husband’s name on it to their neighbor’s house and planned to break into the couple’s garage to install a GPS device on their car, officials said. Continue reading...
Snap says augmented reality will be foundation for next major shift in technologySnap, the company behind Snapchat, has revealed plans for a fully fledged digital platform taking on not only Facebook but also Google and Apple.The company is launching an app store, expanding its games platform and offering the facility for external developers to upload machine-learning models to build augmented reality experiences. It is allowing other apps to integrate its camera software for the first time, and incorporating businesses into its maps alongside users’ friends. Continue reading...
Automated section of app took a third of its content from two sources: CNN and Fox NewsWhen algorithms replace humans in charge of editing news, they tend to select more stories about celebrities from a less diverse selection of publications, according to research.Jack Bandy and Nicholas Diakopoulos of Northwestern University in the US analysed Apple News over a two-month period from mid-March, collecting every headline published in two sections of the popular and influential news app: Top Stories, which contains content selected by a team of human editors employed by Apple; and Trending, which contains stories selected by the company’s proprietary algorithm. Continue reading...
As other video games companies move towards Netflix-style streaming and subscription services, Sony has doubled down on a new console. The company’s Simon Rutter explains what the PS5 brings to the tableLast night in a livestreamed broadcast, Sony showed its new video game console, the PlayStation 5, for the first time, along with 28 new games that will be out this year or next. It is a futuristic-looking thing, all white curves and black and blue-LED accents and a touch of mid-00s service robot about it. One version is digital-only, the other comes with a drive for people who prefer to buy games on disc.As cloud-based and Netflix-like subscription services have gained traction in the video game world, the “end of the console” has become a popular conversation point. Two years ago at E3, the yearly video games conference, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer told the Guardian that “we pivoted about three or four years ago to thinking about the gamer first, not the device first … Our focus is on bringing console quality games that you see on TV or PC to any device.” But Sony is doubling down not only on the idea of the games console, of generational technology shifts that make new kinds of games possible, and on the idea of selling a new box by funding games that can only be played on PlayStation 5. Continue reading...
Pocket Casts says it refuses to restrict its content at request of Chinese authoritiesApple has removed two podcast apps from its Chinese app store, following government pressure to censor content.Pocket Casts and Castro were both pulled from distribution in China after the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) demanded that the apps stop allowing content that breached the country’s restrictive speech laws. Continue reading...
Content focused on Covid-19 and the protests in Hong Kong and over George Floyd in the USTwitter has removed more than 170,000 accounts the social media site says are state-linked influence campaigns from China focusing on Hong Kong protests, Covid-19 and the US protests in relation to George Floyd.The company announced on Thursday that 23,750 core accounts – and 150,000 “amplifier” accounts that boosted the content posted by those core accounts – had been removed from the platform after being linked to an influence campaign from the People’s Republic. Continue reading...
Join us as we cover the PlayStation 5 announcement live from 9pm BST/1pm PDT10.42pm BSTWell, that’s it for the PlayStation 5 event this evening. Clearly, the focus was on games rather than hardware – at least until the end – and fans got what they wanted, beginning with an enhanced GTA V and moving on through new Spider-Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, Hitman and Ratchet & Clank titles. The finale was the reveal of the PlayStation 5 console itself, a radical re-think of the machine’s lineage, abandoning the all black colouring we’ve seen in the last three machines in favour of a futuristic white and black monolith.Compared to the recent Xbox Series X games stream, which focused on original indie titles, this was something of a fan-pleasing big brand onslaught from Sony [Update: there were also plenty of interesting independent titles too, including Stray and Little Devil Inside, making this a more rounded presentation]. But we’re yet to discover how many of these titles are exclusives, or even timed exclusives, beyond the first party games.10.22pm BSTThey saved it right til the end, but Sony has finally revealed the form factor of the PlayStation 5, an ultra futuristic robot white machine, with gliding lines and a black central stratum. This is a really radical look, like something out of an Alex Garland script. The console will come in two versions: a standard model and a digital machine. It’ll be accompanied by a 3D camera. Continue reading...
Three campaigners accuse US firm of disrupting their access to platform to placate ChinaThree prominent human rights activists have accused Zoom of disrupting or shutting down their accounts because they were linked to events to mark the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre or were to discuss China’s measures to exert control over Hong Kong.Lee Cheuk Yan, a veteran activist with the Hong Kong Alliance, which organises the city’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil, said his account was shut down in May before he was to host a Zoom event on an extradition bill that caused mass anti-government protests in Hong Kong last year. Lee said he purchased a subscription to the platform in an effort to get access, but his account remained blocked. Continue reading...
Privacy advocates are concerned, saying basic security shouldn’t be a paid feature left open for the possibility of working with law enforcementZoom, the popular video conferencing platform, has announced it will provide end-to-end encryption after facing a litany of privacy and security concerns – but only to users who pay for it.Eric Yuan, the company’s CEO, raised alarm among privacy advocates on Wednesday by saying Zoom planned to exclude free calls from end-to-end encryption so as to leave open the possibility of working with law enforcement. Continue reading...
CEO says decision was ‘tough’ but ‘thorough’ as company faces harsh criticism and public dissent from employeesMark Zuckerberg is standing by his decision to allow Donald Trump to threaten violence against George Floyd protesters on the platform despite harsh criticism from civil rights leaders and public dissent from his own employees, including a public resignation.In a video conference with staff on Tuesday, Zuckerberg said that his decision to not remove Trump’s warning on social media on Friday that “when the looting starts the shooting start” was “tough” but “pretty thorough”, the New York Times reported. The company usually holds an all-staff meeting on Thursdays, but the session was moved up to address growing discontent among employees, hundreds of whom staged a “walkout” on Monday by requesting time off. Continue reading...
Activists say Facebook boss’s decision to leave ‘shooting threat’ up sets dangerous precedentCivil rights leaders have criticised Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to take no action against a Facebook post from Donald Trump appearing to threaten to start shooting “looters”, after a Monday night meeting with the company’s executives ended in acrimony.“We are disappointed and stunned by Mark’s incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up,” Vanita Gupta, Sherrilyn Ifill and Rashad Robison said in a statement. Continue reading...
Over the past two decades, scientists have laid bare our need to know more about women’s physiology. Can tech designed by and for women help?If you’re asked to imagine a person who has a heart attack, who do you see? Most of us think of an old man. It’s what we tend to see in movies. And while 3.9 million men live with cardiovascular disease in the UK, according to the British Heart Foundation, 3.5 million women also have a heart condition. However, we know much less about how to spot cardiovascular health issues in women. This means women wait longer to seek medical help, and are only half as likely as men to receive recommended heart-attack treatments.It was only in 1993 that women and people of colour were officially included in US clinical trials, yet much of our current medical knowledge has been shaped by earlier research. But over the past two decades, scientists have laid bare our need to know more about a wider range of bodies. As data is slowly catching up with reality, could technology help to plug the gap? Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#545AT)
Apple perfects its current laptop design, with great power, battery life and now an excellent keyboardThe 2020 13in MacBook Pro is the last of Apple’s laptops to get its new and improved keyboard, banishing various issues to the rear view mirror and essentially perfecting this current design.Despite both sharing the same name, the 2020 13in MacBook Pro is split into two lines: a cheaper version starting at £1,299 with two USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports and older eighth-generation Intel chips; and a more powerful version starting at £1,799 with four USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports and the latest 10th-generation Intel chips. Continue reading...
Parents of locked-down kids might be advised to steer clear of this compulsive look at the smartphone and its ruinous effectsWith this enthusiastic, info-taining documentary Jon Hyatt runs the risk of stating the bleeding obvious by elaborating on facts everyone is already aware of: staring at your phone for too long is bad for your mental health, evidence is growing of the harmful impact of screens on children’s brains, tech companies design apps to exploit our cravings (and get hold of our data). Hyatt pushes his folksy voiceover too far – “Gee, do I love my phone” – as he goes cold turkey from social media (and cuts his kids’ screen time), but he’s an affable presence. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#53TT7)
With a full return to work and social life still some way off, you may need a new computerWith a full return to work, school and spending time with family in real life rather than on a video call still not in sight, you may have finally decided that it is worth buying a new laptop. If you want an affordable computer there are lots to choose from, including Chromebooks and Windows 10 PCs.Really cheap Chromebooks are often better than the equivalent Windows machines because Chrome OS is a lighter, low-maintenance operating system built around Google’s Chrome browser, web and Android apps. Just check how long the machine will receive updates from Google before you buy. Continue reading...
Video calls have become part of daily life since the pandemic hit, helping the locked-down, especially elderly and disabled people, keep in touch. But there are downsidesJust before lockdown, 29-year-old Ala Uddin became ill with coronavirus-related symptoms and had to self-isolate in his London flat. “For 23 days I was relying on video calls,” he says. “I hardly used them before, but now it was the only way I could see anyone and communicate with my housemate, even though we were living in rooms next to each other.” Uddin was also regularly video-calling his parents and siblings in York, as well as family members in Bangladesh, all of whom were checking in to make sure he was coping. “Without video calls I don’t know how I could have got through that time,” he says.Since the pandemic hit, Zoom, FaceTime, Houseparty, Microsoft Teams and all manner of other video-calling apps have become so engrained in our lives. As one of the only safe ways to communicate, it’s hard to imagine living without them. None of these have taken off quite like Zoom. At the end of December, the app reported a maximum of 10 million daily users. By March, 200 million people were on it each day to work, socialise, view lessons and lectures, sing in choirs, attend church, birthday parties and weddings, meet new babies, say final words to dying family members and observe Ramadan and Easter. So embedded are these apps in all parts of life now that when Zoom went down last weekend, it made headlines around the world and even halted the Downing Street press conference. Continue reading...
Tech giant’s tax turnaround follows a government campaign to force multinationals to pay more taxGoogle’s Australian arm paid $133m to the Taxation Office last year as it caught up with back taxes.The company, one of the ATO’s most high-profile targets in a campaign to get tech giants to pay tax in Australia, declared a profit before tax of $134m in 2019, down from $156m the previous year. Continue reading...
New charges for reCaptcha spur web security firm Cloudflare to seek out an alternativeThe days of clicking on traffic lights to prove you are not a robot could be ending after Google’s decision to charge for the tool prompted one of the web’s biggest infrastructure firms to ditch it for a competitor.“Captcha†– an awkward acronym for “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart†– is used by sites to fight automated abuses of their services. For years, Google’s version of the test, branded reCaptcha, has dominated, after it acquired the company that developed it in 2009 and offered the technology for free worldwide. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington on (#51RVQ)
In lawsuit, Michael Sanchez has accused AMI of plot to ‘scapegoat’ him, and has cast doubt on claim that he was the ‘sole source’A top executive at the tabloid publisher behind the National Enquirer said in a private email that he was “saving for my tombstone†the untold story of how the tabloid uncovered a 2019 exclusive about Jeff Bezos’s extramarital relationship, according to a lawsuit against the publisher.The claim raises new questions about how American Media Inc (AMI) discovered the Amazon CEO’s relationship, and how it obtained knowledge of explicit sexual photographs that Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, has alleged were used against him by the publisher for “extortion and blackmailâ€. Continue reading...
The professional platform is the latest social media site to offer a service where posts expire after 24 hours. But do we really need this kind of fleeting work-based chat?There will soon be yet another way to connect on LinkedIn, as the professionals’ platform trials a version of “Stories†– posts that expire after 24 hours – pioneered by Snapchat and popularised by Instagram.Pete Davies of LinkedIn says that the feature is intended to replicate the “similarly ephemeral and light … cubicle and coffee-shop banter†that characterises interactions in the business world. “Sometimes, we want a way to just make a connection, have a laugh with our colleagues and move on.†Continue reading...
As hacking gangs use more and more young fixers for their internet scams, one 18-year-old reveals how he and his friends made a fortuneLike most 18-year-olds, “Carlos†is never far from his phone, using it to catch up on his social media feeds and scroll through friends’ pictures. Unlike most teenagers though, he posted photographs depicting a level of affluence unlikely for someone who left school after GCSEs and is now a junior employee at a central London restaurant.The pictures showed a life of excess – Carlos and his friends holding wads of cash, clad in designer clothes, Rolex watches on their wrists, and driving around London in a Mercedes. Continue reading...
Issue raised by Trumps chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in meeting with Dominic CummingsThe White House campaign against Britain’s decision to allow Huawei to supply 5G network technology is expected to continue after a critical UK-US meeting at Downing Street broke up without reaching agreement on the issue.Sources said that the American delegation, led by acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, were unimpressed with attempts made by the prime minister’s chief aide Dominic Cummings to persuade them to work together on developing alternatives to the Chinese supplier. Continue reading...
Lil Icey Eyes gave users cold stares and thick eyelashes – and also seemed to persuasively slim noses and enlarge lipsSome online fads are “blink and you miss ‘emâ€, but I couldn’t help noticing the viral ascent of Lil Icey Eyes – an augmented reality face filter that became central to a popular TikTok and Instagram trend this week.It seemed like every time I opened the app over the last 72 hours I encountered a flawless face with the cold stare of a Siberian husky – albeit one wearing fairly intense false eyelashes. The faces would pout and pose for a second, and then the filter would disappear, leaving the user howling with laughter over the contrast between their glamorous virtual visage and their real self. Continue reading...
Trump’s chief of staff gives clear warning about using Chinese firm to supply equipmentDonald Trump’s acting chief of staff has warned there could be “a direct and dramatic impact†on the sharing of intelligence between the US and UK if Boris Johnson’s government goes ahead with allowing Huawei to supply equipment to build the British 5G mobile phone network.Mick Mulvaney’s remarks represent one of the most forceful warnings yet by senior Trump administration officials, who have repeatedly made clear their concerns about the British decision to allow the Chinese company to supply its technology. Continue reading...
Video game movies get bad reviews but are working to different criteria from other filmsFrom the moment the Paramount ident appeared on the screen with Sonic’s trademark gold rings replacing the usual stars, I knew this movie was for me. Taking my sons to see Sonic the Hedgehog last night, I was aware of the film’s less than effusive reviews, but we are fans of the games, and my boys have grown up watching cartoons such as Sonic Underground and Sonic X, so let’s just say we knew what we were getting into. The Stuart family came here for silly quips, blue skies, speed and mechanised boss battles and we were not disappointed.Sonic the Hedgehog is no masterpiece. Its story of a young magical hedgehog being sent from his dangerous home planet to stay on Earth, and there discovering friendship while being pursued by sinister government forces, borrows almost all its beats from ET, without much of Spielberg’s gift for lush sentimentalism and overpowering childhood nostalgia. Continue reading...
New tax proposal by the socialist city council member would affect about 825 companies and is expected to raise $300m each yearJust a few months after going head-to-head with an Amazon-backed rival to claim her third term on the Seattle city council, Kshama Sawant has proposed a new tax on the trillion dollar giant and other large Seattle businesses, which she says will “stop at nothing†to try to defeat progressive proposals like this one.The proposal, which was unveiled last week, would involve a 1.7% payroll tax on the top 3% of companies (based on their payroll) operating out of the city. Sawant estimates the tax will impact about 825 companies, each with about $7m or more in annual payroll. All non-profit organizations, public employers and grocery stores would be exempt. Continue reading...
BAME and LGBTQ+ representation is above the average for the UK’s creative industries, while the number of women in the games industry is creeping upwardsThe old stereotype of video game players as spotty, socially isolated boys in basements is finally disappearing after decades, but the popular image of game developers is enduring. They are imagined to be white and beardy, with glasses and a probable fondness for sci-fi and fantasy, and this is hardly unjustified. Cast an eye over the development floor of pretty much any major game developer in the western world and there’s an undeniable homogeneity. The same can be said about video games industry executives. Whether clean-shaven or bearded, besuited or smart-casual, creative or corporate, they are almost universally white and male. In 15 years on the games beat, I have interviewed more men called Phil in senior games industry positions than women and people of colour combined.But new data from the University of Sheffield, shows that things are changing. Backed by games industry trade body Ukie, it conducted a census of more than 3,200 game developers in Britain, and discovered a young and increasingly diverse workforce. The researchers found that two-thirds of the UK’s game development workforce is 35 or under; 28% are women and 2% non-binary; 10% come from BAME backgrounds; 28% come from somewhere other than the UK; and 21% identify as LGBTQ+, a particularly surprising statistic given that only 3-7% of the general population do so. Continue reading...
Ryanair and others companies that have made misleading environmental claimsThe airline came under fire last week from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for using outdated information to claim it was the UK’s lowest emission airline. The statistics it used failed to include many rival airlines and were based on data from 2011. The ASA ruled that there was not enough evidence to support the claim and banned the advert as misleading. Continue reading...
The company is giving drivers more freedom, but critics say the move is a ‘smokescreen’ and that nothing has really changedFor the past month, the ride-hailing company Uber has been piloting new features in California, such as letting drivers set their own payment rates, in hopes it will avoid the reach of a new state law threatening to reclassify its contractors as full-time employees.But workers – and legal experts – say they aren’t fooled. Continue reading...
In the years leading up to Trump’s election, traditional media gatekeepers found themselves shoved aside by trolls and tech companies who told us they were only giving us what we wanted. By Andrew MarantzIn 2012, a small group of young men, former supporters of the libertarian Republican congressman Ron Paul, started a blog called The Right Stuff. They soon began calling themselves “post-libertarians,†although they weren’t yet sure what would come next. By 2014, they’d started to self-identify as “alt-rightâ€. They developed a countercultural tone – arch, antic, floridly offensive – that appealed to a growing cohort of disaffected young men, searching for meaning and addicted to the internet. These young men often referred to The Right Stuff, approvingly, as a key part of a “libertarian-to-far-right pipelineâ€, a path by which “normies†could advance, through a series of epiphanies, toward “full radicalisationâ€. As with everything the alt-right said, it was hard to tell whether they were joking, half-joking or not joking at all.The Right Stuff ’s founders came up with talking points – narratives, they called them – that their followers then disseminated through various social networks. On Facebook, they posted Photoshopped images, or parody songs, or “countersignal memes†– sardonic line drawings designed to spark just enough cognitive dissonance to shock normies out of their complacency. On Twitter, the alt-right trolled and harassed mainstream journalists, hoping to work the referees of the national discourse while capturing the attention of the wider public. On Reddit and 4chan and 8chan, where the content moderation was so lax as to be almost non-existent, the memes were more overtly vile. Many alt-right trolls started calling themselves “fashyâ€, or “fash-istâ€. They referred to all liberals and traditional conservatives as communists, or “degeneratesâ€; they posted pro-Pinochet propaganda; they baited normies into arguments by insisting that “Hitler did nothing wrongâ€. Continue reading...
Joining a battle already being waged by many other cities, the Czech capital’s mayor wants new laws to limit the lettings websiteFor decades, its mesmerising blend of baroque and gothic beauty was closed to mass tourism by the iron curtain that divided the communist east from the capitalist west during the cold war.Now Prague, which has gained an unenviable reputation as a destination for stag nights and pub crawls, has become the latest European city to propose a radical assault on Airbnb and other short-term letting platforms as over-tourism threatens to overwhelm it and drive out residents. Continue reading...
US secretary of state is on visit to meet Boris Johnson on eve of BrexitThe depth of American opposition to the UK granting the Chinese telecoms firm Huawei access to its 5G network has been underlined as the US secretary of state said the Chinese Communist party represented the central threat of our times, and had front-door access to Huawei systems.He said the US would try to work through its differences with the UK decision announced this week but stressed the US would never permit its national security information to go across networks in which it did not have confidence. Continue reading...
Users of RadickRadio app with Iranian IP address got access to ride-hailing service SnappA digital radio app has been removed from Apple’s App Store after it was discovered to be a front for an Iranian cab-hailing firm attempting to sneak past US sanctions.RadickRadio first appeared on the App Store in early July offering a selection of radio stations playing genres including classic rock, folk and pop hits. The app’s thousands of reviews added to the impression that it was a simple music player, and to anyone outside of Iran that was all it appeared to be. Continue reading...
Spending on high-end TV dramas by Netflix and Amazon eclipses BBC, Sky and ITVThe making of Hollywood hits such as the latest James Bond film No Time To Die and Sam Mendes’s 1917, as well as prestige dramas such as Netflix’s The Crown and the BBC’s His Dark Materials, fuelled a record spend of £3.6bn on film and TV production in the UK last year.The amount spent on film production in the UK in 2019 rose 6% year-on-year to £1.95bn – on 188 productions – the second-highest amount since the British Film Institute (BFI) began records in 1994. Most of this spending came from the big Hollywood studios, which ploughed £1.4bn on making just 21 blockbusters. Continue reading...